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She glanced at the sketch pad in his hand “May I?”

“What? Oh, of course”

Accepting the tablet, she thu the sketches he had done of the Pyramids of Menkaure, Khafre, and Khufe, otherwise known as the Great Pyrae of King Khufu, which had been sealed into a pit at the foot of the Great Pyras of the Great Sphinx, as well

She returned to his sketches of the solar barge She hadn’t seen the ship in years, but the boat in his drawings looked exactly as she remembered “These are wonderful,” she said enthusiastically

“Thank you I intend to paint it when I get back ho so old and so exquisite has survived so long”

“Yes,” Maraknehy the ship had been buried Even Mara didn’t know Soht have been used as a funeral barge to carry the e Khufu from Memphis to Giza Others speculated that it had been buried with the king in case he had need of it in the afterlife Whatever the reason, it had been a remarkable find

She turned her attention to the other sketches in the book—a child playing with a puppy, an old wo spices, the El-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, an oldin the shade of a tree, the statue outside the Temple of Karnak in Luxor

His as exquisite A few strokes of his pen and he had captured the elegance of the Colossi of Raait of a caht of a hot-air balloon hovering over the Nile, the sparkle in the eyes of a little girl as she chased a ball, the hopelessness on the face of a street beggar

She handed hiertips brushed his, she was startled by the little current of electricity that arced between the like that before She took a deep breath He was neither Vampire nor Werewolf nor shape-shifter, so what had caused that peculiar preternatural spark?

She knew, by the sudden widening of his eyes, that he had felt it, too

“Do you also paint portraits?” she asked

“Yes,” he said, his gaze probing hers “I do”

“Would you consider doing erness and his obvious adoration He was a handsome man, tall and slender, his skin bronzed by the sun But it was his eyes that beguiled her Clear gray eyes, open and honest, with nothing to hide A good ood ued her

“So,” she said, lifting a hand to the heart-shaped ruby pendant nestled in the hollow of her throat, “when can we begin?”

“Whenever you wish,” he said “Now, if you wish”

With the setting of the sun, she had intended to find a place to rest, to bury herself in the Valley of the Nile for a year or two, perhaps ten, but the idea no longer held any appeal Suddenly, the world didn’t seeued her had disappeared She wanted to see the world anew through his eyes, to discover what had caused that odd sensation when they touched